I took my trauma on vacation
hello from me and all my emotions in England!
Hello from me and my trauma in England 👋🏼
I’m kidding…and I’m not kidding 😅
The saying really is true that wherever you go, there you are.
Oh man…where to begin?
Okay, so let’s start with why I’m even on this trip to the UK!
My partner got accepted to a post graduate diploma program at Oxford University (super exciting for him!)
and I’m along for the ride 😆
In all seriousness and humility, I am deeply grateful to be able to travel and experience different places in the world. It was never something I did much of growing up, or at all in my teens and 20s. The last two years I’ve been traveling like crazy because as I’ve done a lot of healing and awakening to my authentic Self, I surprisingly discovered I had this massive desire to see the world. I didn’t know that about myself before! And so I’ve taken every opportunity I could to travel and enjoy life more through that.
There’s also sort of an embarrassment or shame I have around the fact that I’m not working at the moment and that I’m just tagging along on this trip. I now know that this comes from the fact that I’m really really hard on myself and harsh with myself, and that it’s not true/doesn’t mean anything about me, but I can’t deny that it’s there a little.
I’ve had many people in my life say things like, “how cool you get to go!” and it’s been really helpful to have their words reflected back to me in that they don’t see me as a worthless human for not working and tagging along, but instead emit a joyful feeling for me that I get to actually partake in the opportunity.
I am in a really weird place mentally and emotionally lately.
Last year I experienced everything in my life coming to a head and then everything crumbling. I kid you not, every area of my life. Work, relationships, identity, emotional health, physical health. We also went to a couples therapy intensive at the end of November that we ended up having a terrible experience at. And while I left with new clarity about myself, that experience has left me needing to recuperate from the trauma vortex I was in because of the very unskilled therapist they paired us with, rather then feeling refreshed and supported.
I was already in a depressive daze going into the therapy intensive that I’d been navigating through, but especially after that awful experience I haven’t quite felt like myself and my nervous system is fried.
I can tell this because while I’m here in England, I don’t really feel “here.” I love to travel and I’ve been on so many trips where I feel so present and alive. And on this current trip I feel like I could be anywhere. I’m sleeping a lot, my body feels tired and I’m looking forward to going home.
The conclusion I’ve come to for myself in this season is that I need to feel grounded, safe, in my routine and comfortable and it’s not a season for me to be going all over the place— even it’s for fun and I’m not necessarily “doing anything.”
Currently I’m reading a book called ‘Wintering’ by Katherine May, because it’s exactly my life right now, and where I’m at in the book she is explaining how she is entering a personal season of winter. She went on a trip to Iceland and on the trip got really sick. I can relate— my body has been getting sick so often the last year…like more times then I’ve ever been sick in my entire 32 years of life. It’s been so strange and disheartening for me because it’s so unlike me…and yet, what I’ve run my body into.
There’s a passage in the book that I related to so much with what I’m currently experiencing. She said, “But I’m also being forcibly reminded that this is some kind of a gateway into a new phase in my life. I’ve been wound so tight with stress that I can no longer see past my own knots, and now, having relaxed ever so slightly, I’m feeling the full force of it’s impact. I’m run-down. I have skittered over to Iceland in the wake of a bomb blast, and now the aftershock has caught up with me. Life is clearly teaching me some kind of lesson, but I can’t decipher it yet. I’m worried that it’s about doing less, about staying at home and giving up on adventures for awhile. Thats not something I want to learn.”
In a sense, I’m glad for this trip because it confirmed to me that that’s what I need right now and not have FOMO or feel jealous the next time my partner comes to England and I don’t come with him. It’s my choice to honor my limits even if I have all the time and freedom to go, which is hard and new for me.
I think there’s been this scarcity in my life the last few years— this dread of, “take every opportunity that comes your way because there’s been so much wasted time in your life and trauma has taken so much from you.” This feeling has been ever pervasive and has become familiar.
It’s been like I’ve been traveling down a road where that’s been the narrative and now I’m coming to a crossroads where there’s a new road I’m meant to travel on for this season of my life with a new narrative that’s unfamiliar, but necessary. Which is a hard adjustment.
Where I am standing now, I know there will be some grief, and in an empowering way the grief feels welcomed. It feels empowering because it feels like my choice. Even saying the word choice feels emboldening.
And for a trauma survivor, choice is everything. It feels strange, liberating, empowering and emotional. To say no to something. To say yes to something. All coming from a desire and a knowing within rather than coming from a should, a supposed to, scarcity or an obligation.
So ya, this trip has brought up a lot. It’s not been good or bad, just sort of a low hum of auto-pilot and making the best of each day exploring new places, taking this as a little breather from healing and responsibilities in my life. Very grateful to have this opportunity, and, the message is coming through loud and clear that it’s time to honor my limits as I’m in a personal season of winter in my life. And this trip has helped me see and get that.
Here are a few pictures for the scrapbook to share in some of the joy with you all!
More regular newsletters will be coming once I get home and more settled! I’ve been taking a little breather from work and writing since being with traveling and ideas and newsletters have been brewing. So thank you for understanding and for being here!
I’ve been thinking of a little community name for us all and since this is the Diary of a Recovering Nobody newsletter, I was think of calling us ‘The Somebodies’ - what are your thoughts?!
Chat soon xx